GCAS Field Trip to Paquimé, Part V
05/20/2018
To read the complete narrative of the GCAS field trip of May 2-4, 2018, see Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.
The second half of Day 2, May 3, 2018, comprised a tour of the area's historic structures, including a charming 1930s-era church in Juan Mata Ortiz.
In stark contrast to the small, well-tended church and grounds in Mata Ortiz, were the ruins of Hacienda San Diego, one of the mansions belonging to the early 20th-Century cattle baron Luis Terrazas. During the First Gilded Age, Luis Terrazas amassed a combined total of 7 million acres of ranch land, over 500,000 head of cattle, and a few hundred thousand head of horses, mules, and sheep. He was reputed at the time to be the largest individual land owner in the Americas. During the Mexican Revolution of 1916, Pancho Villa used his position as provisional governor to confiscate
Terrazas's land and slaughter all the livestock to feed the revolutionary army.
(This is an avocational archaeological website, so I will not personally comment upon the politics of the Terrazas-Villa era. I will leave it up to discerning websurfers to determine for themselves whether or not certain remarks are factually attributable to Luis Terrazas, such as, "Chihuahua comprises the largest part of my ranch," and "I am not from Chihuahua. Chihuahua is mine.")
The ruins of Hacienda San Diego date from 1902-1904 and comprise the mansion, a granary/warehouse building, stables, and workers' quarters. Efforts are underway to preserve and rehabilitate the structures with a view toward opening them for events and lodging in the distant future. The stables and the workers' quarters were built with adobe brick above an interesting foundation of field stones chinked with smaller flat stones. Similar chinking-and-stone methods of construction were used in the thresholds and lintels of the workers' quarters' doorways.
...to be continued in Part VI...
/s/ webmaster
Comments